UK Post Smart Meter Main Breaker Tripping Intermittently

[Scott J Walker]

My grandparents are having problems after the installation of a smart meter (against my advice) and now the circuit breaker trips intermittently during the Day part of Economy 7 with no other discernable pattern.

Sometimes it will switch off after being toggled on again before a few minutes have passed but otherwise, it appears very random. There are two Live Wires coming into the Aclara SGM 1400 meters. Perhaps the day wire is loose?

There are such a range of possible causes such as wires being reversed or earth leakage that seem a nightmare for an electrician to diagnose that I feel I need to know as much as possible about what needs to be checked out because I have the great fear that this may be an incredibly obscure issue that only a very experienced and knowledgable spark can diagnose and resolve.

Incidentally, the Electrical Supplier, Ovo who pushes the meter by letter does not want to know and has refused even to send a supervisory installer to check the meter was correctly installed.

 

[timhoward]

I'm afraid this isn't totally uncommon.
It's either:
1 - loose connection after meter change or incorrect installation.
2 - unfortunately timing of a genuine earth leakage fault
3 - (more unusual but not impossible) the RF signal from the smart meter interfering with the RCD.

1 and 2 can be ruled out fairly quickly and methodically - it isn't quite the rocket science that you suggest for a decent sparks. For 2, either ramp testing the RCD's, or measuring earth leakage current directly will usually reveal an issue. Insulation resistance testing of each circuit can help narrow down the problem to a single circuit and provide a starting point.

The 3rd is harder. I think MEM / Memora 2000 / Square D consumer units were the main culprits.
If you do a forum search you'll find a few threads about this topic. I'm afraid it usually ends up either removing the smart meter or moving/changing the consumer unit.

One person left a video camera recording the moment it trips, and proved that without exception the meter transmit light came on exactly as it tripped, every time. I believe in that situation they managed to convince the energy company to come and change to a normal meter again.

I hope this at least helps you get started with this topic. Keep us posted!

 

[Scott J Walker]

I'm afraid this isn't totally uncommon.
It's either:
1 - loose connection after meter change or incorrect installation.
2 - unfortunately timing of a genuine earth leakage fault
3 - (more unusual but not impossible) the RF signal from the smart meter interfering with the RCD.

1 and 2 can be ruled out fairly quickly and methodically - it isn't quite the rocket science that you suggest for a decent sparks. For 2, either ramp testing the RCD's, or measuring earth leakage current directly will usually reveal an issue. Insulation resistance testing of each circuit can help narrow down the problem to a single circuit and provide a starting point.

The 3rd is harder. I think MEM / Memora 2000 / Square D consumer units were the main culprits.
If you do a forum search you'll find a few threads about this topic. I'm afraid it usually ends up either removing the smart meter or moving/changing the consumer unit.

One person left a video camera recording the moment it trips, and proved that without exception the meter transmit light came on exactly as it tripped, every time. I believe in that situation they managed to convince the energy company to come and change to a normal meter again.

I hope this at least helps you get started with this topic. Keep us posted!

A Memora 2000, yes. I noticed that coming up in my research alot as the RCD but often the threads i'd find would end without any kind of eureka solution.

If I could confirm that the two live wires coming into the meter are separate Night/Day wires it would be quite suggestive. Here is what I mean.

Oh, I had to redo my post after registering and missed a key detail; when the main breaker trips the power is not cut off to the whole house. The Kitchen and Living Room sockets are sometimes left running but the Lights/Upstairs sockets always go out.

 

[timhoward]

If you have or could obtain a wider photo showing the consumer units too, it would help.
But yes, the two brown tails on the right of the meter are for the different tariffs.

 

[Scott J Walker]

I got some photographs of the complete system, I should have done this when making the OP but I didn't have them to hand.

 

[snowhead]

There have been 2 main issues raised and proven on here re "Smart" meter installs
The first being the RCD fitted the the consumer units mentioned by Tim.

The second being a complete *ock up by the meter fitter when connecting up the new meter and misunderstanding connections to RCD's

 

[snowhead]

Having studied the pictures it looke like the clowns have escaped the circus again.

Can you do another photo from slightly further back showing everthing in one photo, so we can see where the larger grey cables all go.
And can you confirm which switch is tripping

 

[Scott J Walker]

Yes. It's the red one on the right of the top breaker unit.

 

[westward10]

Same meter same type of consumer unit. See #51.

Rcd tripping with no switch on after smart meter installarion

Hi I am.from uk I had a gas top up meter and a electric smart meter installation Thought to ask my energy supplier to fit me a gas smart meter aswell Their enginner came and said we will have to install the electric meter aswell so they will combine the smart thing on the display But after...

www.electriciansforums.net

 

[timhoward]

Having studied the pictures it looke like the clowns have escaped the circus again.

It's not the clearest set of tails to follow, but I've not yet spotted an issue.
Looks like the lower Wylex has storage heaters on the LH side and other circuits on right, so has both tariffs, and the MEM 2000 has only one tariff.
Unlike other ones we've seen, there seems to only be one RCD in this setup and it's not an up-front one, so the only thing they can get wrong is which tariff goes where, and even that wouldn't cause mis-directed current and RCD tripping.